Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (14 page)

“It’s important to you.” She put a small plate of peanuts in front of me. “But I decide what’s important for Fontesceau.”
 

“I’m not asking you to change how you run things. I’m asking you to initiate a few security protocols.”

She crossed her arms and looked at me.

“Let us do a head count.” I wiped my fingers on a napkin. “Gardinels will sweep through the community, take down people’s names, locations. It’ll help in case something happens. You can initiate a curfew so we know where everyone is —“

“Governor.” Charlie tossed a dish towel over her shoulder and motioned to the floor. “See those folks? They come here because they need to get away from something. Most of their families don’t even know they’re here. They come to grieve, to forget and be forgotten
for a while. Some have financial problems; some are getting over a heartbreak. Others have cancer or are getting old and this is their last chance to enjoy themselves. Many of them have already lost someone in the war.”

She braced her hands on the counter and leaned in. There was a compelling aura about her, something strong and unyielding that made you want to look into her eyes and trust.
 

“I’m not going to tell those people to lock themselves away. Now I understand you’re the Governor and the
sondaleur.
You have your own job to do, but I also have mine. I provide those people with the healing they’re searching for. You can’t tell me what I do is less important.”

“You provide them with an escape. I’m trying to protect their lives —”

“Wrong. I provide people time.” She straightened, her expression hard and implacable. “Time for the unbearable to become a little more bearable. That saves lives, too.”

The problem was I understood. I knew what it meant to flee for a little while, to need time and space to breathe.

I could ignore her wishes and simply order the door-to-door head count. But that would only destroy what little trust she had left in the system.

Protection only worked when the people you were protecting believed in it.

I suddenly wished Rhian were here.

“So I take that as a no.”

“I don’t know how you do things in Haverleau.” Her face slightly softened. “But Fontesceau is mine. Unless you give me something more than a nonsensical riddle, I’m not letting your gardinels and chevaliers ride roughshod over my community.”

“And if something happens?”

“Then that’s on me.” She began washing a dirty glass. “Don’t you worry about that. These shoulders are broad enough to handle what comes.”

“At least cancel the welcome reception tonight. It’s not safe —“

“Oh, come on.” A broad grin broke across her face. “Now you’re just being rude. Who doesn’t want to have a party?”

I’d always believed no one could drive me as nuts as Nexa or Julian.

I was wrong.

A figure I’d recognize anywhere entered The Well. Several ondines immediately stopped dancing, their eyes watching him with dreamy admiration.
 

Sunlight dappled across his golden skin, catching the dark lashes framing his eyes. A lock of hair dropped over his brow and my fingers itched to push it back.

Tristan always moved with a power that commanded attention. He walked with a fighter’s innate agility and balance, barely leashed energy simmering beneath his skin.
 

Alert eyes scanned the crowd, his handsome face a sharp mask of concentration.
 

His gaze caught mine and the corners of his mouth tilted up. Pleasure rushed through me.
 

I knew the heat of that skin, the taste of that mouth, the feel of those hands on me.
 

Most of all, I knew what it felt like to have someone who’d always come for me, who’d fight beside me no matter what.

Warmth spread across my chest. He nodded toward the empty stage and I wove through the intoxicated crowd to meet him.

He pulled me to the wall behind the speakers. His eyes flickered over my face and I felt it like a physical caress

“Augustin told me you went to see Brigette.”

I nodded. “She agreed to leave.”

Brigette’s words about my mother continued to echo in my mind.

The first time I saw Tristan was when he’d spoken to her about bringing me to Haverleau.

“Hey, when you met my mother for the last time, that night in San Aurelio, what did she say to you?”

Surprise flashed through his eyes. “She said you were the
sondaleur
and that you knew nothing about Haverleau or your heritage. She wanted you to be protected.”

I wondered if she’d also seen us. Had that played a part in asking Tristan to bring me to Haverleau?
   

The thought sickened me. I didn’t want Tristan and me to have been part of a plan, something fate or my mother or a prophecy designed.

We chose each other.
 

My mother had controlled my entire life, from training to education to relationships.
 

I needed to believe this belonged to me.

“Kendra?” His brow furrowed. “What is it?”

“Just wondered if maybe she’d foreseen Brigette’s help,” I said lightly.

Tristan opened his mouth and for one moment, I thought he was going to ask why I was lying.

Instead, he turned away and looked out at the crowd.
 

A shadow drifted past the window on my left. Ray had been flitting in and out of my sight all afternoon.

Tara, Will, and Holden leaned against the wall near the bar, unfriendly scowls carved into their faces. The sunny weather didn’t suit them at all.
 

Grady was the only one having fun. He tore up the dance floor, wiggling his skinny arms and scrawny torso as if music vibrated through his very bones.
 

“Dax is arriving tonight,” Tristan said. “He’ll take Holden and the others up to Daniel’s cabin tomorrow.”

“Good.”
 

Like all Belicouxs, Dax was a strong fighter. He’d make sure the nixes stayed safe.

“Have you seen Julian?”

A pause. “He left earlier with Nexa. They headed into the woods, but I’m not sure where they went.”

Damn it. They were already investigating the rest of the island without me.
 

“He’s in love with you.”

Tristan studied me, his eyes intent. It was the first time he’d ever brought it up.

“Does it bother you?”

A slightly rueful expression crossed his face. “I’d be lying if I said I was happy about it.”
 

“There’s nothing to be —“

“I know.” His expression softened. “And I can’t really be angry because I know what he sees in you.”

He reached over and brushed a strand of hair off my face.

The world faded and there was only us.

Tristan could make that happen with one touch, one breath, one glance.
 

He had that kind of power.

Nervousness washed over me like an icy shower and our surroundings snapped back in full blown technicolor.
 

I stepped away and glanced around.
 

Charlie shook her hips as she added a plastic umbrella to a margarita. Grady danced with a white-haired ondine. Another group began a conga line.

No one noticed us.

“I don’t think anyone saw,” I said, relieved.
 

Silence.

I glanced up. Tristan’s expression had shuttered.
 

“There seems to be more tension between you and Julian recently. Did something happen?”

I shrugged. “No more than the usual.”

There was no need for him to know about what Julian had done in New York, especially since it wasn’t my story to tell.

I knew what it was like to be envious of someone, to feel weak and exposed. Part of me wanted to strangle Julian for feeling that way.
 

But a part of me also wanted to protect his vulnerability. I wouldn’t betray his trust by telling the person he envied about it.
 

Tristan’s jaw tightened. “Okay.”
 

He pulled away from the wall, walked a few steps, then stopped with his back still to me.
 

“You would tell me if there was something, right?”

“Come on,” I joked. “I’d be the first to bitch about what an ass Julian is being. You know that.”

It wasn’t a complete lie.

A nod. “I’ll see you tonight.”

His voice was calm, utterly without inflection.

But his shoulders were tight with what remained unspoken.

SEVEN

Fontesceau didn’t like waiting.

The sun had barely dipped beneath the horizon when the welcome party started.
 

Moonlight crept over the glassy ocean and wound up the shore. Music boomed through The Well’s open doors and Redavi danced on the sandy beach. A blazing bonfire illuminated their uninhibited movements.

Tristan’s warm voice came through the receiver. “Governor.”
 

All chevaliers and gardinels could listen in on this frequency. Contacting me this way meant a security issue.

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“We have several groups holding impromptu gatherings in the woods.”

“Same here,” another voice added. Michael, a Haverleau chevalier assigned to the western perimeter. “Many homes are holding their own private parties before heading to the beach. We’re trying to locate all of them but it’s been difficult.”

The headache that had begun to throb earlier this afternoon now burgeoned to a full migraine.

If everyone in Fontesceau assembled in one spot, our jobs would be infinitely easier. Since we were on an island, you’d think that would be a simple enough task to accomplish.

Apparently, we were asking for too much.

“Assign a few of your men to track down as many groups as possible. Persuade them to move back toward the south shore.”

“We’ll try.”

My stomach growled. I wandered over to the buffet table set up near The Well and reluctantly loaded up on an assortment of appetizers. Eating felt like tacit acceptance of the situation.

“I wouldn’t try the tuna salad,” a voice said. “It’s been left out for too long.”
 

A certain gravitas had settled around Dax, adding an austerity to his frame that resembled his father. Dirty blonde hair had grown slightly longer, and his eyes, dark with flecks of stone grey, appeared older, more solemn.
 

His
pedallion
glinted in the moonlight. The crisp clarity of the aquamarine stone reminded me of the glaciers of his Kingdom and the waterfall we’d once raced through.

It suited him.
 

He watched a drunk demillir stumble across the sand. “I thought this party was for us.”
 

“Of course not.” We were simply an excuse for Fontesceau to have it tonight. “Congrats on becoming gardinel. I knew you could do it.”
 

“Same to you on the Governorship.”

I shook my head. “Nothing to congratulate. It’s an inherited duty.”

“Serving the people is an honor,” he pointed out.
 

I didn’t bother replying. Now wasn’t the time to get into it with him.

“Heard your confirmation ceremony was something else.”

“Who told you that?”

“Who do you think?”

Dax and Tristan’s father, King Ancelin Belicoux, had been a thorn in my side from the moment I met him.

Stubborn, prideful, and tough as nails, Ancelin had an opinion on just about everyone and everything.

“What set him off? That I brought in a non-Irisavie to take over the Irisavie chair or that I insisted on nix presence?”

“Both actually.” His brow furrowed. “Did you really wear lingerie?”

Nice to know the gossip mill traveled as far north as their kingdom.

“Jeans and a camisole top.” I bit into a canapé and swallowed. “If that’s what you consider underwear, you need to live a little, Dax.”

 
“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you wear that?”

“Why not?”

He glowered. “Because it looks like you’re mocking elemental tradition. Your priority should be to inspire the people —”

“My priority is to do the job while being honest about who I am.”

Dax shook his head. “A leader doesn’t get that luxury. You can’t have it both ways, Kendra. Taking on the responsibility for others means placing their needs above your own.”

I scoffed. “Is that what your father taught you?”

“No. Tristan did.”

I paused mid-bite.

“It’s why he wanted me to take over the throne. He said how he felt toward you and what he wanted in his life made it impossible for him to be the kind of leader our kingdom needed.”

His words were uncomfortably similar to the rules my mother had once enforced.

You can’t have what others have.

“And you agreed?”

He shrugged. “I want my brother to have a chance at finding personal happiness.”

“And what about yours?”

“I’m pursuing mine.” He touched the
pedallion
. “I’ve already fulfilled the obligatory part of my life.”

Surprise flickered through me. “You didn’t want to be a gardinel?”

“Both of my brothers were great warriors before me, my father before them. I wanted to prove I could also do it, but it was never my dream.” He paused. “Leading our kingdom is something I want to do.”

“Why?”

“Tristan and Eric always did everything first and my entire life was spent trying to prove I could also do what they did. But this hasn’t been touched by any of my brothers. This is something of my own that I can give to our people.”

Envy flashed through me at his tone. Like his brother, Dax sounded more certain of his reasons than me.

It’s who I am.

I’d agreed to the Governorship because it was better than the alternative. I needed support to finish my work as
sondaleur
and placing me as head of the Council seemed the best way to accomplish that.

Doubt suddenly washed over me and I once again wished Rhian were here so I could ask her for advice.